Pickpocket
by Selentric
Summary: When a man steals from the wrong Hunter, trouble and terror ensue. A short one-shot.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hunter x Hunter_ or its characters. Angelo is my own creation.

* * *

Angelo was just trying to make ends meet. And luckily, with this new job, he never let his talents go to waste. Being a pickpocket of clueless tourists was the easiest money he ever made. As Angelo thumbed through his catch of the day, he came across something more valuable than the already loaded wads of money in the wallet.

A Hunter License.

 _Holy shit, this thing is worth at least a hundred million Jenni! If I cash this in, I won't need to pick through scummy tourists ever again!_

He was already salivating over the juicy prospects as he cautiously walked through the packed crowds. He couldn't let any of his other wandering competition discover his catch. For the first time in his twenty-two years, he had to be fierce in protecting his goods.

For a moment, though, he wondered about the Hunter he snatched this from. Either Angelo was getting better, or that person must had been a lousy Hunter to have gotten his most precious item stolen. Seemed like the Association's becoming desperate. Either way, things were looking up for him.

And then his stolen wallet flew out of his hands.

"What!" He looked left to see the wallet soaring across the crowd and into the hands of...a rose-haired clown.

 _Shit,_ he thought as sweat beaded on his forehead. _That's gotta be the Hunter. How did he notice me? I'm the best there is! Guess the Association isn't slacking, after all…_

Part of him knew that trying to get the wallet back would end in a bad result. This guy _was_ a Hunter, after all. But the opportunity to have that wallet again was standing only a few meters away from him. He couldn't let it slip past him, no matter how dangerous the risk. If he stole it before, he could do it again.

He pointed straight toward the smiling Hunter and screamed, "Help! That guy stole my wallet!"

The Hunter's proud smile sunk into a startled frown. Already a few tourists were giving the weirdo suspicious looks. No one saw Angelo take the wallet, but it was clear that more saw the previous event unfold. Who wouldn't be confused to see a wallet suddenly fly into a person's hands? And that Hunter's strange card-suit getup wouldn't help make him less conspicuous, either.

"Yeah, I saw it!" One tourist was talking to a police officer and pointed. "That clown guy stole that man's wallet!"

"It just flew into his hand like it was a magic trick!" another bystander yelled.

"Oi, give it back!" Angelo said as he strode closer to the Hunter.

The police officer stepped forward. "Sir, just do as the man says-"

"Oh, no, officer," the Hunter purred, his silky voice oddly calm. "You've got it mixed up. _This man_ is a pickpocket. He nearly stole my wallet, but luckily I noticed and merely took it back. Telling the honest truth. That's really all that happened, sir."

The officer turned to Angelo, a curious glint in his eye. "I gotta ask, is that true?"

"Now, really, officer," Angelo started, trying to hide his nervousness and intimidation at the Hunter's overwhelming and charismatic presence. "You saw a wallet fly out of my hands, right?"

"Yeah," the officer said, fixing his cap.

"Then it clearly cannot be me," Angelo claimed. "Just how could a pickpocket allow his goods to get stolen back?"

"Indeed," the Hunter murmured. "He must be a poor pickpocket for that reason."

Angelo hid his stinging hurt from that comment and straightened his back. "It's obvious that the true offender-"

"There's a Hunter License in here," the Hunter revealed, smirking as he pulled out the license card. " _My_ license, to be specific."

"O-Oh, yeah?" Angelo asked, hoping to stall for time. Something was bound to go wrong if he couldn't try to make a break for it. "And just how can you verify that claim?"

The Hunter chuckled. "You really know nothing…as a Hunter, you would already know that the front sequence of numbers is your unique ID, and it's easy to verify once it's swiped..."

"Ah, that's right," the officer said.

Angelo blinked. He had never heard that before.

"And once it's stolen, it's completely useless in that person's hands."

Angelo's blood ran cold. So it wasn't worth it, then.

"O-oh, really? Seems like I must have forgotten that…" Angelo trailed off with a nervous chuckle.

The rose-haired Hunter flashed Angelo a strange smile. Angelo felt chills trickle over his body. He had to weasel his way out of this-the problem, though, was that he had a feeling this Hunter wasn't going to let him go that easily. He definitely couldn't pull out his knife-the man was a Hunter, after all, and that officer next to him was staring Angelo down intently.

So he did what any sensible person caught in the act would do. He kicked up some dust and ran.

Angelo was pretty sure that he had lost them when he stopped to catch his breath. His lungs were burning. He hadn't run this hard and this fast in a long time.

Suddenly he felt something tug at the back of his neck. He whipped around, his eyes darting from corner to corner. For a moment, he thought that Hunter must have caught up with him, and saw nothing but the regular crowds strolling through the city streets. He let out a relieved sigh.

And then he felt a strong force jerk him backward and send him flying back down the path he had just traversed. His mind was racing as some kind of force tightened around his throat and he whizzed past people throwing back looks of pure shock. He was flying? What the hell was going on?

After another moment of tumbling through the air, he landed on solid ground and slid toward a pair of black high-heeled boots. With a start, he was pulled up to his feet, and his mouth gaped open as he saw the Hunter smirking at him with one finger lifted toward the pickpocket. Bullet-sized sweat beads broke out along Angelo's face and neck.

"Nice try," the Hunter said in his infuriatingly smooth voice.

"I-I got pulled..." Angelo stammered, searching for the right words while staring straight into the face of this dangerous man. "You? H-How did...?"

"I'm a Hunter," the rose-haired man said again. "Catching someone like you is merely a fun little diversion for me. It was fun playing with you, but I'm afraid I must get back to my real objective. And I'm afraid you must go and face your mistakes." He pulled Angelo closer to him, his smile getting more twisted by the second, and whispered, "Such a shame that your only talent is stealing without being noticed, since that clearly didn't work in your favor today. If you had Nen, you might have been pretty powerful..." He licked his lips, a gesture that made Angelo's skin crawl. "It might have been fun taking you on in a fight, but it seems you're only good at running."

Angelo felt his sweat output increase tenfold. He had no idea what this "Nen" thing was that the Hunter was talking about, but it probably was related to how he could pull Angelo without the use of any string. And the way the Hunter talked about "fights" only made Angelo even more frightened. Were all Hunters this terrifying?

The Hunter let out a sigh and dropped his arm. The tension that Angelo felt around his neck released itself, and he collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. Another pair of black boots appeared in his field of vision, and he felt handcuffs around his wrists.

"All right, kid," the officer grunted. "Time to see if this Hunter is telling the truth."

Angelo resisted letting out a laugh. As if the police could prove that a pickpocket was a pickpocket. He'd be out of there in no time. He risked a look back at the Hunter, who, to his surprise, was still there.

The Hunter was still giving him that eerie smile, as if he knew more about Angelo than he was letting on. That smile, much to his terror, would haunt him for the rest of his days. And even though the police couldn't prove that Angelo was a pickpocket, he gave it up, gave up antagonizing people over the potential fear of crossing paths with someone like that Hunter.

Because if the Association could approve such a dangerous person as a Hunter, he didn't want to know what others may be lying in wait.


End file.
